On the go and no time to finish that story right now? Your News is the place for you to save content to read later from any device. Register with us and content you save will appear here so you can access them to read later.

"We're certainly seeing incentives creep into the market. There's not the massive oversupply that everyone was predicting, but there is an oversupply and developers are really keen to get the balance of their buildings leased," he said.

"Once the new builds were initially done, it was certainly higher [rent] and incentives were non-existent. It really is on a case-by-case basis."

He said the first wave of demand, which consisted of large international firms such as Deloitte, had moved back into the central city, and they were seeing the second wave come through now.

That consisted of strong local practices that had been around a long time, which were coming to the end of their current leases and now able to see where the "big players" were, he said.

Some other practices or businesses had moved into temporary premises and fitted them out for about 10 years, which could be an expensive process, so they did not want to move out yet, he said.

"Consequently, they [landlords] are doing a deal normally in the form of rent-free and that's just to assist that cash flow at a time when they're having to walk away from a fit-out which is probably only half its life and then reinvest in a brand new fit-out."

Mr Burrows said he expected to see current empty office space be snapped up within the next 12-18 months.

City councillor Jamie Gough said there was an over supply of central city office space and a lack of tenancies.

"Landlords are almost having a race to the bottom with respect to rents, and some of the incentives being offered are as generous as they have ever been."